I Know
by kyuuketsuneko
Summary: One of the Weiss members is changing. Omi's POV. Maybe onesided Omi x Ran if you really squint. Loosely linked with "I Don't Know".


**Disclaimer:** Weiss-verse belongs to its respective owners

**Summary:** One of the Weiss members is changing. Omi's POV. Maybe onesided Omi x Ran if you really squint. Loosely linked with "I Don't Know".

~X~

He doesn't think I know, but I know.

It's my job, really. I think sometimes the others forget, but _he_ never does. He knows perfectly well who _really_ is the leader of this group of misfits. He's just like a vice-captain of sorts. A stand-in for situations where I can't afford to go bulldozing into. But the other two don't seem to understand that. That, or they ignore it in favour of my big, childish blue eyes.

But I'm not the important one here.

Here, it's all about _him_.

To be honest, I shouldn't have been so surprised.

Ken-kun was always the passionate one – passionate in love, in friendship, in hate. It's part of the reason he's breaking down really.

Youji-kun always longed for and lusted after human contact – in truth, he's just a lonely attention-seeker desperate to fill the hole Asuka-san left him. I can't help but pity him.

And Ran-kun? Well, for all his apparent maturity, he's a child. A child that rages, despairs, and then tries to hide it all behind a veneer of indifference. He's hurting – he's always been hurting – but the others don't see that, too wrapped up in their own miseries. And so he grew more and more distant from us, even as I tried to break past his icy exterior. In his silence, tumultuous thoughts and doubts plague him. And so he distanced himself from everyone and everything, wrapping protective layer after layer of ice around his heart to preserve its half-broken state. Foolish, isn't he?

In the end, not a single one of them can really cope with this line of work.

To be frank, I'm disappointed. Kriticker and Persia selected Weiss candidates based on their combat potentials: Youji-kun had basic police training, and had the street-smarts to survive as a PI. Ken-kun was a professional athlete, a goalie in fact, and had both the reflexes, stamina and upper-body strength of a close-ranged specialist. And Ran-kun was a national kendo champion of near-unprecedented talent.

But they failed to take into account their psych profiles.

Or perhaps it's all on purpose?

They leave us to torture ourselves in grief, in longing and in our foolishness.

But I digress.

The reason for my musings is slipping past me to access the kitchen, his face indifferent to my frozen smile.

At first, I was surprised. Smells that I had long associated with Youji-kun were suddenly present on him. I might've wondered if he had been spending too much time with the blonde man, but then I realised that the smell of sex and alcohol and cigarette didn't quite match up.

While Kudou smelt of cheap perfume (probably from the women he beds), equally cheap alcohol and Marlboro*1 (I always knew he fancied himself as a cowboy!), Ran-kun's scent was that of… perhaps a man – the strange mix of minty freshness and aftershave weren't smells that came from Ran – of strong vodka, and of Camel*2.

In the end, the two of them were different, even in the details of their self-destruction.

And then another scent was added – one that was never on Youji-kun, for all his decadence.

It took me a while to figure out what it was. It was only through sniffing various illicit samples from Kriticker (while being supervised by a scowling Birman), and the speck of white on his nose one morning, that I realised it was cocaine.

Truly, the man is an idiot.

And to think this started happening only _after_ we got his sister back.

Perhaps he dreamt of escaping this life? Even for a child, that's naïve. There is no 'out' of Kriticker – not unless Persia takes pity on him (which would never happen)*3. Maybe that's why he's turning to a new form of escape?

But I can't have that.

Drinking, smoking and sex is one thing.

STIs are more likely to cause discomfort than outright kill you in time for people in our line of work, so frankly I couldn't care less who he sleeps with as long as he doesn't splatter us all with HIV-positive blood and wreck _our_ lives.

And drinking? Well, again, liver disease is the least of our problems, and frankly at the rate he's going, he won't live long enough for there to be a noticeable decrease in his IQ. That, and it's always _me_ making the mission plans.

And don't get me started on smoking. It always irked me that Kudou smokes. It's killing the rest of us (which is why I always pout and tell him to put it out, taking full advantage of my childish face), _and_ it's messing up his endurance. It might not matter as much to him, a long-ranged specialist, but it certainly will matter for Ran. But it's still vaguely acceptable for now. The smell of smoke is faint on him, so maybe he's not a chain-smoker yet.

And then the drugs. Their side effects come quicker than the other vices. Who wants an agent going through withdrawal in the middle of a mission? An agent who can't even remember his own name? An agent that sells his friends out for his next high?

No one, that's who.

And I won't stand for Ran being thrown out like gutter-trash.

So, at last, on this dreary morning, I approach him.

"Ohayou, Ran-kun."

My voice is chipper. My face is set in a wide smile. My eyes tell a different story.

And he knows I know now.

~X~

*1 = Thanks to an advertising-based paper, I now know that the Marlboro image is apparently 'very rugged and manly, and involves cowboy'.

*2 = Again, I blame that advertising paper. I always remember Camel as the "brand that British doctors smoke". Lol.

*3 = Or does it… muhaha. Go Gluhen Persia!


End file.
